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Trump Goes After Nations Who May Create New Currency; Closing Arguments Underway In Daniel Penny's Manslaughter Trial; Children Hit Hardest By Slow Ramp-Up To Respiratory Illness Season. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired December 02, 2024 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:34:27]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: President-Elect Trump is seven weeks from returning to the White House, but he's not waiting for that to defend the American dollar with a threat to Russia, China and other nations belonging to the BRICS economic coalition.
Trump posted that he will impose 100 percent tariffs on goods from each nation if they move away from the dollar and create their own currency.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: BRICS, of course, stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the founding nations of the group, which, this year, expanded to include five more countries. And they've been weighing making their own currency to reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar.
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President-Elect Trump says that if that happens, the BRICS countries, quote, "should expect to say goodbye to selling in the wonderful U.S. economy."
Joining us now to discuss is Jeff Stein, a White House economics reporter for "The Washington Post."
Jeff, thank you so much for being with us.
I should point out, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a BRICS summit just weeks before the 2024 election that the group was, quote, "not considering this issue. It's time has not come yet. We need to be very careful and act -- act gradually without any rush."
How real is this threat of BRICS countries abandoning the dollar?
JEFF STEIN, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMICS REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's a very good question. It's a little hard to assess. You know, over the last 50, 60 years, the U.S. has come to dominate the global financial system. A
What that means is that if you're Russia or Brazil or India and you want to make a trade, let's say for oil or for other crucial commodities, you often have to use sort of the dollar-based financial system. You have to transact in dollars to make that transaction happen.
And that gives the U.S. this incredible choke point, right, to say we're not going to allow this or that transaction, at least theoretically, from occurring. And that's sort of powered the rise of U.S. financial sanctions.
And so these countries, I think, have increasingly explored saying maybe we don't want to be dependent on the U.S. dollar and the U.S. financial system for making these trades. And that sparked this wave of interest in an alternative payment system.
That said, as you're pointing out, this seems years, at a minimum away, from actually occurring. And it raises the question of, is Trump just sort of making a threat about something that's not actually occurring so he can declare victory?
I mean, if he goes out and says that we will impose 100 percent tariffs on Canada if Montreal invades Maine and they don't do it, then he can say, look, I prevented Montreal from invading Maine.
That obviously is not going to happen in either scenario. But perhaps prevents -- you know, gives Trump the impetus to say, I got something done.
KEILAR: Be careful. This is how you start things, Jeff, with these ideas.
(LAUGHTER)
KEILAR: No. But so this idea, talk a little bit about --
(CROSSTALK)
STEIN: -- here first.
STEIN: Right.
You know, the idea of, hypothetically, would it allow some of these countries like China Russia and Iran, which recently you know, expanded BRICS did to include Iran, to circumvent Western sanctions by abandoning the dollar?
STEIN: I think it's a real thing worth taking seriously. I mean, the global south. in particular, but also, you know, obviously Russia and China, have become increasingly ostracized and increasingly pushed out of the U.S. financial system by our own economic sanctions, by our own financial penalties.
Which are, you know, people here would say with good reason, are responding to bad actions taken by those countries.
But it spurred this interest in saying, you know, if -- if the U.S. can, with -- with a sort of a flip of a switch, you know, prevent a commodity from getting into China, that they need, let's say, to power, you know, their A.I. or their other sort of semiconductor industries, for instance, which the U.S. has effectively done, at what point do those countries say we need to build our own network of payment systems to prevent the U.S. from hitting us?
And I think part of the big problem here, right, is that these countries are very factionally divided among themselves. So while they are sort of ostensibly unified in the idea that they oppose sort of Western hegemony and want to be able to do these important trades outside sort of the all-seeing U.S. eye.
But at the same time, right. Putin, for instance, has an ICC warrant out for his arrest. And so he, you know, was not able to go to South Africa, which is another sort of founding, quote, unquote, "BRICS member," for their conference last year.
India and China are also unified in this ostensible alliance but are becoming increasingly divided as sort of the next rising superpowers. India has actually strengthened its ties over the last couple of years with the U.S. to counter China's rise.
So it's - it's a little hard. I mean, the impetus makes sense. The rationale behind it makes sense. But there's a lot of reasons to be suspicious that this is a real threat to the (INAUDIBLE).
Obviously, Trump, especially at the start of his administration, wants to set this threat up to be as menacing as possible so he can take credit if it doesn't materialize.
A lot of the experts I talked to said there's -- you know, this thing doesn't exist yet, so him threatening it, you know, and precluding it from happening is -- is kind of a threat without a purpose at this point.
KEILAR: Yes. Lots of key imports from BRICS nations. We can't forget that.
Jeff Stein, thank you so much. We appreciate you being with us.
STEIN: Thanks for having me on. Thanks, guys.
KEILAR: Today, the jury will hear closing arguments in the New York City subway chokehold trial. We'll have the latest from New York next.
[13:39:51]
Plus, a major announcement from one of the greatest pop stars of all time. Elton John says he has lost his eyesight. What else he revealed, next.
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SANCHEZ: Happening now, closing arguments are underway in the manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny. He's the ex-Marine accused of applying a deadly chokehold on a homeless man inside a New York City subway car last year. Prosecutors say that Penny held on for more than six minutes, even
after the victim, Jordan Neely, stopped moving.
Witnesses say that Neely had entered the train acting erratically and yelling frightening some passengers. Penny is charged with second degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
Let's get the latest from outside the courthouse with CNN's Gloria Pazmino.
Gloria, how are these two sides wrapping up the case?
[13:45:02]
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Now, for nearly more than two hours, we have been hearing from defense attorney, Steve Raiser.
Tried to put the jury back into the subway car. He has tried to paint this picture for them, describing a subway car filled with passengers that he said were, quote, "frozen in fear."
Now he has tried to do this, to try and explain why Danny -- Daniel Penny took action. He said that those passengers were afraid when they saw Jordan Neely get on the train and began acting erratically.
And he said that Penny stepped in to protect others because of his training as a Marine. That he felt the need to make sure that other people were safe.
Now, he said that it's actually not an accident, that there's no video of the entire struggle between Penny and Jordan Neely because, he said, people were frozen in fear and did not start recording until Jordan Neely had been subdued by Penny.
Now there's another very interesting point that Raiser has tried to make so far, and that is about the amount of pressure that Penny used while he was holding Neely in that chokehold.
That's important because the city medical examiner said that Neely had died as a result of pressure applied during the chokehold. In fact, he has been referring to that choke hold as a, quote, "civilian restraint."
And he has said that he could have used a different maneuver that he was trained on but decided not to do it.
The reason for that, Raiser said, quote, "He's an architectural student," he said of Penny. "He's a surfer. He's a musician. He's a caring friend, brother and son. That's the softer side of Danny that informed him not to choose -- to choose not to use a textbook Marine chokehold."
Very interesting point by Raiser here, considering that the Marine trainer who showed Penny how to do this maneuver testified that he had used it incorrectly. Another point Raiser has been making is that the prosecution was
rushed to bring charges as a result of political pressure. You might remember just how many protests there we're here in the city following the incident.
We are expecting the defense to wrap up their closing arguments in the next few hours -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: Gloria Pazmino, live outside the courthouse in New York City. Thank you so much, Gloria.
Brianna?
KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we are watching this hour.
The Florida woman convicted of letting her boyfriend suffocate inside a zip suitcase for hours is moments away from being sentenced in his death.
Sarah Boone was found guilty in October of second-degree murder. Prosecutors said that her boyfriend voluntarily climbed into the bag during a game of hide and seek.
But Boone then zipped it, recording herself, taunting him and ignoring his pleas to get out. She went to sleep, they said, with him still trapped inside. And she is facing up to life in prison.
Also, after a disastrous tenure, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is out. He took on that role in 2021, tasked with reviving the tech giant.
But under his leadership, Intel's stock has tanked 61 percent, due, in large part, to Intel missing the A.I. boom and being surpassed by most of its rivals.
And Sir Elton John says he has lost his eyesight. He told a London audience at a performance of "The Devil Wears Prada" musical that he still cannot see months after suffering a severe eye infection in his right eye.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELTON JOHN, MUSICIAN & SINGER: And to my husband, who's been my rock because I haven't been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I've lost my eyesight so it's hard for me to see it. But I'd love to hear it.
And it always sounded good tonight."
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: The iconic musician, who wrote the score for the show, has previously said his condition has affected his ability to work.
[13:49:02]
And the holidays, they are here. So is, unfortunately, the uptick in respiratory illnesses. But at least one, in particular, is putting a real strain on children's hospitals. We'll have that next.
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SANCHEZ: As the Thanksgiving holiday winds down, the season for respiratory illnesses is just getting started. Pneumonia is now straining the resources of some children's hospitals. And it's not the only disease raising concerns.
CNN's Meg Tirrell is here to discuss.
So, Meg, why is it that kids are especially vulnerable right now to pneumonia and other viruses?
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, I mean, kids are always at a bit of an increased risk. I mean, they've got smaller airways. So if those are getting inflamed, it makes it harder for them to breathe.
And in particular, they have been harder hit than usual by a kind of walking pneumonia caused by a bacterial infection. The bacteria is called mycoplasma pneumoniae.
And this has really been an elevated level since August, especially among kids ages 2 to 4. And that is putting some strain on children's hospitals.
And of course, you never want children's hospitals to be at high capacity, and particularly not as we are heading into the real respiratory illness season.
Right now, nationally, levels of Covid are low and stable. We haven't seen them increase as we usually do into the winter season. And we could still see that coming.
[13:54:58]
Levels of flu and RSV are starting to rise. And experts tell us they expect, you know, about a week after Thanksgiving, we could really start to see what that trend is going to look like.
But, Boris, one thing that's really concerning health officials right now is low vaccination rates really across the board for all of these illnesses, Flu, RSV and Covid.
But particularly, if you look at pediatric flu vaccination rates, you can see there the light blue line is this year's season in terms of the vaccination rate for kids. And the orange is the last season before the Covid pandemic.
You can see we're tracking about 12 percentage points lower in terms of the pediatric flu vaccination rate than we did before Covid. And that's really worrying public health officials. Because they find kids who are hospitalized for flu usually are the ones who haven't gotten their flu vaccine -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that update.
A controversial pardon leaves Democrats doing damage control. Ahead, how President Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter, has divided the party just seven weeks before he leaves office.
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